Land prices in Japan changed almost in tandem with the economic growth rate until circa 1970. However, since 1970 these prices have changed with various economic factors other than the economic growth rate. Residential land prices surged in every region until 1985, but decreased until 1990. Only prices in the Tokyo and Kinki areas rose further. From 1995 and onward, after the burst of the bubble economy, residential land prices dropped sharply, especially in the Tokyo and Kinki areas, but the rate of decline became smaller in 2005. Commercial land prices, on the contrary, rose until 1990 in all regions, then dropped sharply until 1995 with the residential land prices. Declines were especially significant in the Tokyo and Kinki areas, where the land prices had surged sharply. Since then the rates of decline have became smaller in every region, and the prices turned upward in the Tokyo and Tokai areas in 2010.
These land price changes are caused by various economic factors. This paper analyzes how well economic factors can explain the changes. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to analyze the relationships between the rates of quinquennial residential and commercial land price changes and economic factors. As a result of trial and error, we employed the following 16 economic factors; population, rate of population aging, rate of secondary industries, rate of tertiary industries, unemployment rate, per capita prefectural income, financial capability index, per capita budget allocation from the central and local governments for public works projects, labor productivity, per capita annual retail sales, academic qualification index, capital expenditures, housing starts, product shipment value, consumption expenditures, outstanding loans and discounts. With these analyses, we obtained determination coefficients of 0.69-0.95, with residential land coefficients of 0.80-0.93 and commercial land coefficients of 0.69-0.95 after the degrees of freedom were adjusted. Based on these results we analyzed the relationships between economic conditions and partial correlation coefficients for each period and found the partial correlation coefficients responding to economic conditions in each period affect changes in land prices.
Factors affecting land price changes are complex so it is difficult to explain every aspect by these analyses that are also affected by non-economic factors. This paper contributes to the analyses of factors causing changes in land prices of Japan, rather than give a full explanation of land price changes based on economic factors.

JEL Classification: R00, R1